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The Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical will air on Japanese television September 29th and 30th which may lead to a fan subbed version being produced

News has been posted to the Official Sailor Moon Site stating that at the end of September the Nogizaka x Sailor Moon musical will be airing on Japanese TV. The showings, on TBS channel 2 in Japan, will be held on two days to showcase both Team Star, September 29th, and Team Moon, September 30th. Each showing is at 5pm Japan Standard Time. What does this mean for us fans out here on the other side of the globe far from being basked in the radio waves of Tokyo Tower? In the past when a streaming version of the musical was made available this meant that some fan would record the broadcast and eventually create an English fan subbed version of the musical. I have been watching the releases from Miss Dream for the past many years but a takedown notice by King Records has lead to them removing their hosted files for the Petite Étrangère, Un Nouveau Voyage, Amour Eternal and Le Mouvement Final musicals. What does this mean for the new musical? I can’t say for sure.

Last week Miss Dream content manager Sailor Busters posted to her Twitter account stating her intention to record and upload the musical for the site.

So the Nogimyu will be aired on TBS channel 2 in Japan and I WILL have the ability to record both sessions (though it may not be at the EXACT time it airs/streams). Then I will packing it up and upload it for Miss Dream!

It seems like the fan subbing group intends to share the musical. They may of course decide not to rather than risk another takedown notice after all the hard work that goes into translating and subtitling a musical. If it does get subbed and King Records sends another takedown notice they would likely comply and remove the content. I can’t predict the future but it seems like a subbed version of the musical is a possibility.

I’m always hesitant to advocate flat out piracy on this site. In this case fan subs are thought to occupy a grey area where they aren’t legal but in cases such as this they seem to do little or nothing to negatively affect any legal product sales in Japan. Because of this most fan sub groups will be removed once there is a legal release of that content. I always encourage fans to support the official releases when possible. In this case the musicals have generally been released on video in Japan only. These releases are region coded with DVD region 2 which will not play in North America. These have not included any English audio or subtitles. Further the digital versions are usually restricted to users in Japan. That said things are getting more complicated as we have started to see performances and even theatrical showings of recent musicals here in North America.

Could the takedown notices by King Records be an indication of plans for a North American release of the musicals? I can only speculate as to what this means. It may simply be the case that they are trying to avoid having Japanese fans, who might otherwise pay for their legal releases, from downloading these English fan subbed releases and disabling the soft subtitles to watch them without any English text. The Internet, after all, has no borders. These sort of things didn’t happen back in the days of tape swapping and were less relevant with hard subbed videos which would be that much less appealing to a Japanese viewer. Similarly North American releases of Japanese anime on DVD and Blu-Ray could be imported by Japanese viewers often at a fraction of the cost of expensive Japanese releases. In the case of Sailor Moon this hasn’t been much of an issue with the massive difference in quality between Japanese and domestic releases.

What do you think? Have you been watching the Miss Dream subs of the musicals like many others in the fan community? Are you hoping to have a chance to watch the Nogizaka46 x Sailor Moon musical as well? What do you think about the morality of sharing fan subs of releases not legally available in a country?

Ive been on this blog? Accout? Page? (Idk what to call it) for some time now and I always read the comments, and from them i can kind off grasp that you are a nice guy, and i know that youre intentions weren’t to dissrespect Garet’s comment, but seeing the way you wrote it it seemed a little harsh and not very nice, and I know i might have overreacted a little bit because i only read the comment you wrote and i miss understood your intentions with the comment, but since you replied and let us know what you meant I can see that your intentions and our understanding of your comment were different, now again, your comment was a bit harsh but you understood and learned from your mistake which is admirable .

Ooh, exciting! The “Stars” one that came out several months ago was the first time I ever watched a Sailor Moon musical (let alone in theaters), so I’m looking forward to any other ones that come my way. We’ll see.

Sorry to make an off-topic statement, but I’ve just been confirmed to graduate this December. Woohoo! Thanks for being an eternal way to joyfully procrastinate, Adam and the gang!

Thank you, Denis! Garet R., I bet the R. in your name stands for REALLY Cool, because both you and Denis are really cool for congratulating me! Oh, yeah! We are Sailor Moon fans bounded by love and justice. And stuff. I’m so happy I stumbled onto this place and read the news, with peeps like you to comment with. I’m grateful, thanks!

Aurélia, mon ami! Merci mille fois! Okay, I actually don’t know French, but I was going by phrases I’ve heard and read. I apologize if I completely butchered the language just now, haha! But seriously, I’ve gotten to the point where I think of you if I see Sailor Pluto. Thanks for your kindness and humor. 8)

You’re welcome, Joseph! So if I understand well, we shall all call you Dr. Joseph Layton by December ?

Your French words are perfect, except a little mistake that you couldn’t have found out by yourself, but I’m being awfully pedantic here : “ami” is the masculine form of the word, whereas “amie” is the feminine (and, since the final “e” is mute, the pronunciation is the same for both the forms). So from you to me, you’ll write “mon amie”, and from me to you, I’ll write “mon ami”. But I’m aware that for any native English-speaker, French gender rules are really hard.

Dr. Joseph Layton will see you now! I’m actually not going to be a doctor with a doctorate, but that’d be a cool nickname! I wouldn’t object to it on special occasions.

Oh, snap, I missed this comment of yours! I’m sorry. It might look like I was cowering away from friendly, constructive criticism, but I simply missed it! That said, I actually didn’t know that about the French language, but that makes a LOT of sense now that I think about it! I took Spanish for a few years, and that language also has masculine and feminine qualities.

Thank you, mon amie! If I ever take over the world like a Sailor Moon villain, I’ll likely spare you. Or is that too biased? I’m just grateful for your lesson. Thanks!

I hope I didn’t offfend you by mistaking the degree you’ll be graduating for in December (er, I don’t know whether my sentence is correct or not, though), and if I did, then I feel sorry! I feel like I’ve been clumsy :/ . But one thing is sure: you are Professor Joseph Layton, our Sailor Moon specialist!

[Total joke!] Oh, you offended me, all right. Congratulations, Aurélia, for single-handedly breaking my heart into a million pieces. :'( I shall now cry my actual bodyweight of tears while removing every piece of my Sailor Pluto merchandise. [/end of total joke!] Haha, not at all! I never did say what I was graduating for, in hindsight, but it’s a bachelor’s. You’re not clumsy! I take pride in being a Professor Layton fanboy, and if I had the artistic talent, I’d have drawn him as Tuxedo Mask–*frantically checks to see if it’s been done* Not really. But yeah, you’re fine.

Thanks a lot, Justme! And Joseph nailed it: we are here for passion, so there is no reason to be rude towards others. Moreover, being rude towards people that we don’t personally know, that live at tens or even hundreds if not thousands of kilometers from us; and that we will surely never meet down here below (which is a pretty, yet tragic fact), is an inapprehensible concept.

I can die happy now that I own the “Petit Chara Dark Kingdom” set. But I really would like to see Pullip Dolls of the Four Kings. They would be so addddooorrrraaabbblllee <3. Especially Kunzite. And Nephrite. And I also would like a cel of the four of them, completely naked Ô_ô. Ahem. Oops, I believe I'm drooling and fangirling again.

Bahaha @Aurelia, I wonder how Naoko would would respond when you asked her to draw that. #blush You’d have to buy her a drink first. I also got the dark kingdom petit chara, they’re fantastic and yeah, those are also super expensive now too!

You know, if Naoko doesn’t want to draw the four kings naked, she can still draw them with clothes. Transparent clothes, I mean ^^ . And the cel’s title would be “The Emperors’ New Clothes”. Then there would be no way for Naoko to refuse my request. I know, I’m diabolical 8) .
I also have the two complete Black Moon clan Petit Chara sets, and they are the best out of all the collection, very colourful and beautiful.

Real: Any cel of Sailor Mercury smiling with tears in her eyes. I would love that!
Not real: A gorgeous, large painting (framed) of Wiseman with Black Lady, both facing the ‘camera’, poised and ominous.